CD cases

I walked past the radio station at Rowan University about a month ago and there was this sign about a cardboard box asking me to “Please take a free CD”. Of course, I took a bit more than one, but as I was doing do I thought about how I had now knowledge of the bands. A man past me an asked me if there was anything good within it. How could I have known? Half of the albums were from outside the States. Some of them told me what the artists sounded like, but that isn’t always a good communicator. So obviously, I judged the music by their CD case. Below is what I picked up.

I should note that I thought about our mashup storyboards when I placed these on my desk. (They are lined up in a long line) Immediately I thought they told a story, a narrative of sorts.

The story goes like this.

A beautiful land full of animals gets attacked by something terrible. The land turns into a hot dessert for many suns, until a group of people come across it and “get busy living”. In order to begin saving the land they need to indulge in some burgers and begin lathering the land up with some heavy waves of water, until little by little the land grows. Animals return, green plants flourish, and blooms blossom.

It’s a little strange I know, but these were just random CDs I picked up. Some I choose because they had animals or pretty landscapes. The hamburger case was funny and the deep red cases were interesting and eye catching. As a child, my grandmother told me to never judge a book by its cover, but that is how I have been picking up books in Barnes and Noble, it is how I choose these CDs. I didn’t read into the synopsis or care for who the banded sounded like. It was all in the image. Each cover was a signifier that signified something in me. They knew what I liked. They somehow knew that love animals and landscapes and silly stuff, but they also knew that I am curious. I have the urge to know why that hand is in a wave. Connecting images to the unknown an innovative concept, one that demands exploring.

I’ve decided that I am going to listen to the albums in the summer on while driving, and hopefully the CD albums with match with their songs, or, if they are daring, with be unorthodox.